The formula for a territorial compromise floated by Obama on Thursday — the pre-1967 borders with some minor negotiated land swaps — has generated a fair amount of controversy. As I pointed out, while such a deal may not be far off from where the parties end up, placing that marker without requiring any concessions by the Palestinians was contrary to prior U.S. policy and counterproductive.
Jeffrey Goldberg, who I criticized for his indignation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu used the word “expect” with regard to the U.S. honoring prior commitments, points to a proposal from then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008 which included the pre-1967 borders plus land swaps. To Goldberg, this shows that criticisms of Obama are unjustified, but in fact it proves just the opposite.
It is clear that Olmert put forth the proposal not as a formal offer, but was floating the idea to see where the Palestinians stood. This is a common negotiating device; if you know you are going to have a hard sell with your own side, you don’t want to go there if it is a non-starter with your opponent.
Olmert described the proposal and the Palestinians reaction in a 2009 interview. While the proposal did include a territorial aspect, with Israel retaining about 6% of the West Bank in return for land from Israel (presumably in the Negev desert), the proposal also included a resolution of other issues such as Jerusalem (Palestinian sovereignty over part of the city), refugees (to be settled in the West Bank with very limited humanitarian resettlement in Israel), and security guarantees.
This was a package which would have settled the conflict once and for all; the territorial concessions did not stand alone and were not the starting point but the end point.
But the key thing is that the Palestinians, including Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), walked away from what Olmert told them was the best deal they would ever get and one they would not see again for another 50 years:
“He (Abbas) promised me the next day his adviser would come. But the next day Saeb Erekat rang my adviser and said we forgot we are going to Amman today, let’s make it next week. I never saw him again.”
Olmert believes that, like Camp David a decade earlier, this was an enormous opportunity lost: “I said `this is the offer. Sign it and we can immediately get support from America, from Europe, from all over the world’. I told him (Abbas) he’d never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for 50 years. I said to him, `do you want to keep floating forever – like an astronaut in space – or do you want a state?’
“To this day we should ask Abu Mazen to respond to this plan. If they (the Palestinians) say no, there’s no point negotiating.”
Olmert is right to paint this offer as embodying the most extensive concessions, and the best deal, ever offered to the Palestinians by an Israeli leader. But his very experience with this offer raises several questions. Could he have delivered its terms if the Palestinians had accepted it? Perhaps international momentum would have enabled him to do so, and, in fact, Olmert’s Kadima party did remarkably well in the election which followed his prime ministership. Could any Israeli government today realistically make such an offer? The answer would seem to be no.
So rather than proving the wisdom of Obama’s Middle East speech, this history proves the essential misunderstanding of the problem. Putting the 1967 borders on the table as the starting point with no other concessions emboldens the Palestinians to wait, because the deal will get better.
The problem is not that Israel is not willing to trade land for peace — even more land than anyone is willing to say in public — it is that the Palestinians want the land but not the peace.
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Comments
Here's my proposal:
Let's go ahead and take the 67 borders. And if there's peace, that's great. But one rocket over the fence, one suicide bomber, and Israel gets to revert to the largest borders it's ever had.
….Is anyone actually surprised by this?
Let's go REALLY old school: Jordan is for the Palestinians. Wasn't that the original deal, way way back when?
While we're at it, let's start pretending this is action between equals, and come down like a ton of bricks on those that break the agreement, rather than those that retaliate…..
Daniel Levy orders crap sandwiches for most Americans sitting at the table and then boasts, "I'll pick up the reality check." Obama Gets Real on Israel.
Israel is willing to trade "even more land than anyone is willing to say in public"? How stupid can Israel get? Of course the Arabs want the land but not the peace cuz they recognize that the Israelis are idiots for being willing to give up their birthright for a "peace" that will not exist until every Jew is dead or converted to Islam.
One would think that the Israelis, living as they are amongst the Muslims, would understand the distinction between dar ul islam and dar ul harb and know that "peace," as Muslims understand it, is only to be found in dar ul islam.
One would think that the Jews who have given the World its religious and spiritual foundation (Islam is a corruption of Judaeo-Christianity) would know that there is no peace to be found without God.
Land for peace? How could they give up any part of the land that was given to them and expect to find peace? Israel needs to remember that Isaac had two sons: Jacob and Esau and that Esau lost his birthright for a mess of pottage. Peace with the Arabs is such another mess of pottage; let Israel hold on to its land and fight rather than cede it for a non-existent peace lest she, like Esau, lose her birthright.
As for the rest of the world, to hell with them. They have offered persecution and pogroms, hatred and holocausts in return for all they have ever received from Israel—including a Messiah.
At this juncture, Israel needs to change the situation on the ground — say, by reoccupying Gaza and driving out Hamas. The Arabs and the "international community" would bitch and moan but they do that anyway whenever Israel returns fire from Gaza or blocks Syrian "protesters" from entering the Golan. The new Egyptian authorities would make bellicose noises but Egypt's army is in no position to go to war. Neither is Syria. Thusly, the starting point of any future negotiations would change radically in Israel's favor and Hamas would be out of the picture, at least for a while (ironically, Abbas and company likely would privately be happy). All that Israel needs is a new Hamas provocation in the form of rockets or terrorist incursions after a stern warning. Of course, Israel would be taking a risk in terms of Obama's reaction but Obama will be President at most for five and a half years, maybe only one and a half. Israel must endure permanently.
Time to go back to another Bush plan. Let the Palestinians stew in their juices for another 10 years.
Your post is nonsensical, William. Olmert put out a proposal on borders that was essentially no different in concept than what Bush put forward four years earlier. That the Palestinians refused the without even negotiating is neither here nor there. The problem isn't Bush or Olmert or Obama, it's the delusional Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel in the first place.
Bush's policy.
3. Defensible Borders
Bush restored the traditional U.S. view that Israel has a right to defensible borders that are to be different from the 1949 Armistice Lines (the pre-1967 borders). Initially, the Clinton administration supported the idea of defensible borders in its January 17, 1997, letter by Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But with the 2001 Clinton Parameters, the idea of defensible borders was dropped and replaced by "security guarantees." Indeed, Clinton proposed "an international presence in Palestine to provide border security along the Jordan Valley."
In contrast, Bush refers to defensible borders in the context of preserving and strengthening "Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself." There is no multilateral body that is supposed to replace the Israel Defense Forces. Preserving Israel's doctrine of self-reliance, fashioned under Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, is consistent with the national security doctrine of Prime Minister Sharon; its premise is that only Israeli soldiers should risk their lives in Israel's defense.